2011 - Manito Flying V

My first instrument purchase of the year was the Manito "Dakota" or Flying V copy (obviously).

This thing is about $240AU new, and I got it for $85 from the local pawn broker.

It needed a replacement nut, but that was no biggie as I had a spare in the house, it just needed some filing to sort it out.

The guitar is incredibly cheap, but well made for the money.

According to this website the guitar has the following features:

Body: Solid Mahogany
Neck: Maple - bolt on
Fingerboard: Rosewood
Controls: 1 Volume, 1 Tone, 3 Way Switch
Pickups: 2 Humbucker
Bridge: Vintage Tremelo

I removed some paint from the pickup cavity, and sure enough, the body is solid (not laminate).

The pickups sound ok, nothing amazing, but noise free and pretty rock.

Switches pots and jacks are off the shelf and all feel solid.

The bridge is a tune-o-matic style (not tremolo as listed in the specs), the holes for the posts to go through into the bridge are a little larger than the posts they're sitting on. Not a huge deal, maybe half a millimeter, not precise but not a deal breaker either.

The neck has a truss rod adjustment, and seems to be setup for 10-46.

It's a wide flat profile and for the time being it is nice and straight.

I bought this guitar for two reasons:

A: It's a Flying V 

B: To experiment on!

I'm planning on adding a couple of features to it that are far from standard.

One is a sustainer driver and the other is inspired from Tym Guitars "Jazzmaster Bass thingy".

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a cheap mustang pickup like Tim used, so I'm going with removing the pole pieces on a humbucker.

This has the effect of reducing the overall signal to the coil/magnet, but isn't 100% effective at removing the signal from the unwanted strings, especially since the pickup I used has an 11.5k dc resistance (IE: very loud/sensitive pickup).

There are ways to deal with this problem that should prove advantageous to making the sustainer coil. I'll detail my solution at a later date.

Note: Images are stock photos, though look exactly the same as my guitar.